Due process and crime control models

Crime Control Or Due Process

The crime control and due process models give operational content to an intricate set of values underlying criminal law. These models consist of challenging crime and allowing the right justice to be issued. Both models are significant to the criminal justice system and play a major role in identifying crimes and interpreting the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is a complicated system and is constantly changing due to new laws and awareness of crimes. The system varies from country to country with the criminal justice being different and having many contrasts with the law by which each country governs and establishes their authority.

Crime Control Model

The value system underlying the crime control model is based on the intention that the repression of criminal conduct is by far the most important function to be performed by the criminal justice system. The crime control model places heavy dependence on the ability of investigative and prosecutorial officers to cause and reconstruct a reasonably accurate account of what took place in an alleged criminal event. The ‘crime control’ model was established to try and ensure that weak criminal cases were dealt with quickly and “discarded at the earliest opportunity (All Answers, 2018). This meant that larger and more important cases would be dealt with leading to a conviction and punishment as soon as possible.

The crime control model can therefore be said to be the scheme set to punish people and make a difference towards society in reducing crime and showing the public that by these arrests and convictions, it may show the criminal justice system being effective and beneficial to society.

Due Process Model

The due process model rejects this idea and substitutes for it a view of informal, non-adjudicative fact-finding that stresses the possibility of error. The mechanism by which the due process model implements its anti-authoritarian values involves the doctrine of legal guilt, and the due process model locates at least some of the sanctions for breaching operative rules in the criminal process itself. The ‘due process’ model was designed to make sure individuals had their rights portrayed and that they had a fair trial to defend themselves in court.

The due process model is the understanding that a person who has come into contact with one of the criminal agencies cannot have their rights rejected without appropriate legal measures. Therefore any individual who is being or has been charged with a crime, they have several rights in which the criminal agencies have to uphold as the individual is protected under human rights which could be said to co-inside and relate to the due process model.

Packer believes this model is useful as it limits the coercive powers of the criminal agencies and if there is an occurrence of any mistake or corruption, an individual has the right to defend them self. Therefore, the main aim of the due process model is to establish a system that an individual is innocent until proven guilty in court.

People should have their rights portrayed and given an equal chance to defend themselves through the courts and justice system.

What are the similarities and difference which may be involved with each model?

All Answers Ltd. (November 2018). Due Process and Crime Control.

Maguire, M., Morgan, R., & Reiner, R. (eds.) (2007). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (4th Ed.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Packer, H., (1998). Two Models of the Criminal Process (From Criminal Justice System: Politics and Policies, Seventh Edition, P 9-23, 1998. Retrieved from: http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=185992